GPS-guided tractors, cow waterbeds and more at annual Empire Farm Days in Seneca Falls

Stephen D. Cannerelli / The Post-StandardA tractor with a global guidance system is demonstrated Tuesday at the Empire Farm Days on Route 414 in Seneca Falls. Guidance systems like this enable farmers to plant and spray pesticides on a field - no matter its size - within one inch of a prescribed satellite route. The show, expected to attract more than 60,000 people, ends Thursday.

Seneca Falls, NY -- Matt Nelson reached into the cab of the new $200,000 New Holland tractor Tuesday.

"Welcome to farming, 2009," Nelson, a New Holland representative. "Let's turn on the air conditioning before we get the global guidance system working."

Moments later, the cab had cooled and the tractor with power steering and four rear tires as tall as a large man was plodding down a demonstration field deep in the Empire Farm Days show grounds off Route 414 South, Seneca Falls.

It was the first day of the 76th annual show, which features more than 600 exhibitors who are displaying the latest in farm machinery, safety and technology. Thousands of men, women and children, many of them sporting John Deere baseball caps and blue jeans milled about the rain-soaked grounds on Tuesday, the first day of the three-day show. The exhibit ends on Thursday and is expected to draw 60,000 to 70,000.

"It's basically the future of agriculture for three days in August every year," show Director Melanie Wickham said.

So it is. The New Holland tractor that Nelson's company brought to the show features a GPS system that enables farmers to plant and spray pesticides on a field - no matter its size - within one inch of the prescribed satellite route.

The system automatically steers the tractor - though it can be manually overridden -- and there's a computer and color screen in the cab that monitors everything from speed to distance traveled, and can also operate the field equipment under tow.

The bottom line of having the system, Nelson said, is that it allows farmers to seed and treat their fields more efficiently, use less fuel and reap bigger harvests. Total cost of the GPS unit: $25,000 with a payback of a year or longer.

There's one more benefit, Nelson said. "The farmers who use it are far less weary when using this system," he crowed with a smile.

Stephen D. Cannerelli / The Post-StandardTwin 3-year-old brothers Tyler (left) and Trey Eberhart of Rochester crowd into a John Deere tractor at the Empire Farm Days Tuesday in Seneca Falls.

While it's important for farmers to have creature comforts on the job it's also important for dairy cows to have people comforts, said Ed Switzer, 71, who was wearing a baseball cap that read, "Got Cows? Get Waterbeds." He was selling - you guessed it - waterbeds for cattle, a growing market for your favorite Holstein keeper.

Switzer, who lives in Trumansburg, said cows that sleep on waterbeds have fewer leg and utter injuries than cattle bedded on other materials like sand or rubber mats.

A comfortable cow is apparently a more productive cow, too.

"Even though we don't advertise it we see increased production and we feel we can keep the cow in the herd longer because of this increased production," Switzer said.

John MacNaught was among a group of Delaware County Future Farmers of America who watched a new foraging machine mow a wide swath of hay faster than he could say "Nothing runs like a Deere."

MacNaught, who's 16 and is thinking about becoming a farmer, said he had no idea how far farm technology has evolved.

"It's all new to me. Where we come from it's all done the old-fashioned way," he said.

For Stan Cuff, of Auburn, the farm show gave him the opportunity to peddle his company's high-tech manure management system that he said can help farmers become more efficient.

The system, which can cost $100,000 to $225,000, pumps manure from a holding pond through a six-inch hose to fields more than a mile away. It's then injected into the ground. The system can save farmers time, fuel, equipment wear and tear, and can keep the foul smell from neighbors, Cuff said.

"Farmers are also into neighbor relations. They like it when the phone doesn't ring," Cuff said.

There was plenty more to see. Mary Schwarz, of the Cornell Waste Management Institute, sat beneath a tent not far from a large pile of decomposing wood chips covering the decomposed bodies of three heifers that died in March.

The wood chips accelerate the decomposition of animals and Schwarz was peddling the concept as an environmentally safe alternative to burying deceased farm animals or paying someone to haul them away.

All that remained of the animals in the wood chips were fragments of their small bones, and there was no odor.

Like her fellow Future Farmers of America member MacNaught, Christina Hall, of Delhi, was impressed by the thousands of new tractors and equipment on display.

"The farm I grew up on the newest tractor was 20 years old. It's nice to see all this new equipment and stuff. It's just amazing," Hall said.